Industry 4.0 and the Pursuit of Social Innovation

Technological innovation changes our world at an unprecedented speed — confronting us with new and fluid work and life realities:The “uberization of society”, a fourth industrial revolution and robots taking over more work from us than ever. These technological innovations seem to have the potential to change our social system fundamentally. But it is an open question whether for better or for worse. The critical piece to match technological innovation — social innovation — is still missing.

About the Conference

Switzerland, as the first nation in world history, will vote in June 2016 on an intersting and provoking proposal of social innovation: a “universal basic income” (UBI). The idea of universal basic income has been embraced by prominent economists and philosophers from the left and right. It currently experiences a worldwide revival: Leading Silicon Valley entrepreneurs are currently debating about basic income and are planning large basic income tests and experiments. The Finnish and Canadian government is planning experiments testing the potential of introducing a UBI. The Netherlands are conducting a set of experiments testing basic income in Utrecht, Maastricht and Groningen. And New Zealand as well as Namibia are discussing UBI as well.

This conference poses the question of whether technological change requires a new social policy.